On Each Other's Team
by stalrua
Summary: Bucky remembers everything… well, almost everything. Natasha insists that the day he showed up on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s doorstep was the first time they'd been properly introduced, but he still can't shake the feeling that they've met somewhere before.
1. Chapter One

A/N: Yet another foray into the Captain America fandom. This one will be a collection of drabbles, all of them centered on Bucky trying to remember a persistently blank spot in his memories. I have a general idea of where to take this, but feel free to send in prompts if the mood strikes you!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything having to do with Marvel Comics or any of its creations. I can only appreciate the characters they've given us to work with.

* * *

**On Each Other's Team**

_dancing 'round the lies we tell  
dancing 'round big eyes as well  
even the comatose, they don't dance and tell_

* * *

"Are you sure we never… _god damn_… that we didn't… _fucking hell_… that we haven't met before?"

Where Barnes found the energy to speak around his panting breaths, much less the mental capacity to not only come up with words but string them together into complete sentences was beyond Natasha. The only thing she could concentrate on was the delicious friction of the sheets against her back, the metal fingers curled around the nape of her neck, and his relentless pace as he drove her into the mattress.

"Less talking and more fucking."

"I can do both… at the same time… in case you… haven't noticed."

She decided not to comment on the pauses where he greedily sucked in air. "Well, I can't." Actually, she could; she just preferred not to.

Barnes fell silent, seemingly dropping the subject, but it was unlikely the issue was gone for good. It wasn't the first time he'd asked – even if it was the first time he'd done so in the middle of them having sex – so she doubted it'd be the last. Most people couldn't recognize the signs, but Natasha understood better than most just how much the blank spots in his past bothered him. It was far more than he ever let on. So, really, she couldn't blame him for asking. Accepting that thirty years of memories were lost forever would be unimaginably difficult.

But then he was leaning back, angling himself to brush over just the right spot inside her, and when the fingers not tangled in her hair crept between them, she stopped thinking at all.

As he circled the bundle of nerves at her core, she breathed a sigh and willingly let her mind go blank. He was good at this, always had been. Even when he struggled with the after-effects of the Hydra programming, he was good at this. Even when the hand at her neck tightened a little too firmly and his eyes darkened with a hint of something other than lust, he was good at this.

Under his careful ministrations, her back arched. Barnes leaned forward just long enough to press a hot, open-mouthed kiss to the hollow at the base of her throat, and as her nails dragged down his back, he groaned into her neck, hips bucking a little more insistently.

"God, Nat… you feel so good… so fucking good…"

At his words, the familiar pressure building in her core tensed even more. A coil, a spring ready to snap… and Natasha heard the high-pitched sound of her imminent release fall from her lips in rhythm with his movements. Her eyes slipped closed. In the darkness, white spots danced and played, flickering with each of his thrusts, flaring brighter with every exhale that ghosted across her heated skin like a caress. But just as she was standing on the figurative cliff's edge, just as she was about to fall, he pulled back and out and stepped away.

"Roll over."

"What?" She frowned, leveling him with a mild glare. "I figured someone as experienced as you would know it's not nice to leave your partner…"

"On your hands and knees, Natalia."

There was no argument in his voice, only an authoritative tone that sent a chill skittering up her spine. It was a good chill, though, the kind that made her arch an eyebrow and offer a smirk over her shoulder as she followed the command.

Barnes might not know her very well – then again, who did? – but he'd been quick to discover how readily she responded to the use of her past name, the occasional phrase uttered in guttural Russian, and a firm hand in the bedroom. It was like a game, a play of power, a constant push and pull between them.

Reaching out, his hands curled around her hipbones as he pulled her back to the edge of the bed where he stood. Starting at her neck, he traced the length of her spine, dragging a finger down the lithe arc of her back, but as soon as he reached the base, he relocated to her hips once more and entered her in one, smooth motion.

"Is this what you wanted?" He pulled out almost completely before snapping his hips to hers. "Less talking and more fucking?"

Each word was articulated with a hard drive that had Natasha seeing stars. And she wanted to say _yes_ and _please_ and _more_ and _harder_, but the only thing that came out was a low hiss of satisfaction as she rocked back, meeting him thrust for thrust.

The pressure was back, heightened by the hard press of the fingers on her hip and the ones that slid around to tease where she was most sensitive, most yearning. It was all so much… too much. She was struggling for air, and behind her, Barnes' breath came in harsh, shallow huffs. There was a fire in her that roared and grew and burned, and she blazed in return, bright and dark and…

Natasha shuddered under the rush of pleasure, body very nearly curling in on itself with the force of the sensations, and was barely aware of the way Barnes leaned over her. He mumbled, lips forming incomprehensible phrases against the back of her shoulder as he chased his own release that came not long after.

For a moment, she bore the full brunt of his weight as his hips continued to twitch in clipped, staccato movements, but then he was sliding out and falling onto the bed beside her. Flat on his back, he panted, chest heaving from their activities.

"Feel good?"

Barnes blinked, focus shifting from the ceiling to her face. "Like you have to ask…"

Gradually, Natasha's muscles went boneless in relaxation, and she settled onto her stomach, head pillowed on her crossed arms and eyes on Barnes' profile. After a few seconds, he rolled onto his side, one hand at his temple while the other traced invisible patterns down the expanse of her back.

"Are you sure we never met back then?"

She bit back the sigh but wasn't quick enough to hide the way her brows briefly knitted together. However, when his eyes flashed, she reached out and slid her hand around his bent elbow in an attempt to bring him back to her. More often than not, Barnes still had trouble dealing with people's frustration. It was like it triggered something in him, took him back to a world and a mindset he tried to forget.

Her thumb rubbed in repeated, soothing circles. "Why do you keep asking?"

"I don't know." One shoulder rose and fell in a half-hearted shrug. "I remember everything from before I fell… my parents dying, the orphanage, growing up with Steve, those first couple years of the war… and I remember pretty much everything from about the mid-seventies up to now…"

From the corner of her eye, she watched his eyes lose focus as he disappeared into a place inside his mind she couldn't follow. "But?" At her soft question, though, he was back.

"But all those years in between are blank. There are bits and pieces, flashes of things, but I can't make most of them out. Even when I can, they don't make any sense. It's all a jumbled mess." Barnes blew out a heavy breath. "I guess I just figured that since you grew up in the Red Room and I supposedly spent time there, we would've come across each other at some point."

The fingers on her back faltered, then stilled.

"Did we?"

Natasha stared up at him, into grey-blue eyes filled with a silent need for confirmation, rejection, anything that would shed light on the shadowed fragments of his past. Slowly, she raised her hand, fingertips sweeping over the arch of his cheekbone before lowering it to follow the seam where his skin knitted with metal.

"No, Barnes, we never met."

A strange combination of relief and disappointment flitted across his face before he finally settled on a more resigned expression. "Makes sense…" Then, the corner of his mouth quirked in a half-smile. "I don't think I could've forgotten you."

And as Barnes shifted more towards her and dusted feather-light kisses along the slope of her shoulder blades, Natasha hid a bitter laugh in the crook of her arm. Because, of all the lies she'd ever told in her long life of deception, that one was by far the hardest.


	2. Chapter Two

A/N: I'm such an inconsistent updater when it comes to my side stories. Almost three months later and I'm finally getting around to part two. Oh well… better late than never, right? Fans of Bucky and Natasha's relationship in the comics might recognize a couple lines in this chapter.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything having to do with Marvel Comics or any of its creations. I can only appreciate the characters they've given us to work with.

* * *

**On Each Other's Team**

_a thousand silhouettes  
dancing on my chest  
no matter where I sleep  
you are haunting me_

* * *

Voices echoed in the room.

Although it wasn't so much their voices as their sharp exhales as they dodged, their grunts as they bore a hit, and their soft chuckles as the danced carefully around one another.

Bucky adjusted his stance and, reversing the double-edged knife in his hand so that he held it parallel to his forearm, lunged forward. The blade caught the fluorescent bulbs overhead with a flash, light running down its length and emphasizing the wicked edges, but he drew no blood with the slash. There was only the empty whistle of steel through air, the subsequent scramble of his feet against the mat as he regrouped, and a quiet laugh as Natasha twisted her way out of range.

It wasn't a surprise.

He would've been more surprised if his blow had actually found its mark.

"You're getting slow in your old age, Barnes." With a teasing smile, Natasha slid to the side. He watched carefully as she slowly edged her way around him, just close enough to tempt but just far enough away to allow escape should he go for her again. "Does Fury need to order you a wheelchair?"

Adopting a more unassuming stance that matched her movements, Bucky flipped the knife between his fingers. "I didn't hear any complaints about being slow or comments about old age last night."

"Then that must be the problem… you're worn out from too much strenuous activities. I have an idea." He raised one brow in a silent question and eyed the smile playing at the corners of her mouth, the lower lip caught between her teeth, the gleam in her eyes. "Maybe we should raise the stakes to give you an incentive to try harder?"

The knife continued to weave its way through his fingers. "I'm listening."

"If I win, you have to take my spot in the next mission with Stark _and_ we can't sleep together for a week."

"Sounds like a punishment for both of us, if you ask me. Especially considering you were the one to instigate last night." Bucky gauged her reaction, but when Natasha refused to take the bait, he relented. "And if I win?"

"Then I'll take your next mission with Clint…" It was common knowledge that tensions ran high between the two assassins. The brotherly affection the archer held for Natasha was an ever-present thorn in Bucky's side. "_And_ you can have me anytime you want for the next week, no stipulations."

His knife glinted as it returned to a ready position…

"Deal."

Her movements shifted into something more predatory…

"Good."

And then they both moved.

She was fast – faster, even, than him – and strong – considerably stronger than she appeared. And yet, she made everything look so simple. Watching Natasha fight was like watching an intricate dance. It was impossible _not_ to recognize her background in ballet in the way she moved… always so effortless, with such an easy grace, a deadly precision. The Black Widow was an artist, and a potential victim would be too consumed with the brushstrokes of her motions to see the approaching spider bite.

Bucky ducked to avoid a well-aimed kick to his head. Red hair cut a fiery streak through the world when she dodged his punch, snaked beneath his arm to deliver a knee to his solar plexus, and slipped away unscathed as he tried and failed to find purchase in the slick material of her suit during the hairsbreadth moment his fingers brushed it.

Shadowing her retreat, his muscles settled into themselves and reacted of their own accord. They carried him forward, jumped over the leg that tried to knock him off his feet, edged to the right to engage her in direct combat. With their difference in build, it was the most logical course of action. Doing so would play more to his strength over hers.

But the catch was that he wasn't acting out of logic or common sense or even experience.

He was moving almost entirely by muscle memory.

It was like he wasn't in control of his body anymore. Even more was the fact that his mind was lost in the darkness of his forgotten past. Voices echoed in the emptiness just as they echoed in the training room, and the longer the sparring match went on, the less he was able to discern what was real and what wasn't.

A flickering light bulb overhead cast eerie shadows on the dank, stone walls.

"_You have to be prepared for everything."_

Bucky blinked. No, the light was steady, the walls white and clean and sheet rocked.

"You seem distracted, Barnes. How do you expect to win if your thoughts are elsewhere?" Natasha fell back into her native language, her Russian smooth and with a hint of mischief. "Better watch it."

Deflecting a kick headed for his lower back, he spun to follow her forward roll between his legs. When she faced him again, though, it was a teenager he saw. Short auburn hair, freckle-spattered nose, vividly green eyes… the corners of her mouth curled in a minx-like grin filled with challenge.

"_Try to surprise me, then, comrade."_

One arm rose instinctively while the other lowered, knife darting for the outside of her thigh, and all of a sudden the teenager was Natasha again. Using his own body against him, she stepped first in the crook of his outstretched arm and then on his thigh, twisting around his body so that her legs were wrapped around his neck. Without warning, a garrote appeared from some hidden place on her uniform, and he raised his arm just in time to prevent it from tightening around his throat.

Bucky breathed a laugh. "Well, isn't this familiar…"

But memories of their encounter in D.C. were replaced with indistinct visions. The hands holding the garrote on either side of his face were bare instead of concealed with fingerless gloves; the thighs on his shoulders clothed in only a pair of shorts, not a figure-hugging suit.

"_If you don't keep your body back, you're all too easy to catch."_

In one smooth motion, he dropped the knife from the hand blocking the garrote to the other and sliced upward, severing the fibers. The girl above him wavered with the lost tension, but before she could recover, he reached back, felt the silky slide of hair against metal through the receptors in his fabricated arm, and…

A wicked smile tugged at his mouth. "You never did learn to stay back." Before he could do anything more than fist his hand in the strands, however, the world dissolved into motion.

For one timeless moment, Bucky felt nothing.

When he came back to himself, he was lying flat on his back with Natasha crouched above him.

The force of the impact had knocked the breath from his lungs, but it was his neck that hurt worse, sore from where she'd forced him over backwards with her trademark flip. Even still, he couldn't help but smile. She was so gracefully beautiful… so brutally efficient.

"What did you say?"

Bucky refocused to see Natasha's brows lowered in a questioning frown. "What?"

"Just then… you… you said I'd never learned to stay back." Her tongue darted out to wet her lips when she hesitated. "Why would you say that?"

It took a little while for the vision to bleed free from reality. But as the things that might have been memories or might have been imaginings separated away, he was left just as confused as Natasha appeared.

"I saw…" Eyes lowering to stare unseeingly at Natasha's collarbone as an auburn-haired teenager with a whimsical smile danced circles in his head, he swallowed hard. "It was like I was…" He trailed off, unsure of how to voice what he'd experienced.

Reverting back to the mindlessness of the Soldier was a constant concern, which made the lapse all the more unsettling. Had it been a memory? The parallels between the adolescent girl and the mature one now straddling his hips had felt alarmingly real. Or was he going… he didn't want to say crazy, but…

"Barnes?"

The keen edge of his knife pricked at his throat when he swallowed, and he absently wondered how Natasha had snatched it away without him noticing. His gaze lifted to hers. And he wanted to explain all that he'd seen, ask her opinion on the matter, but the words stuck in his throat because he couldn't tell the difference between the two sets of green eyes and it unnerved him all the more.

"Come on." The loss of weight brought him back to the training room, and he watched Natasha stand and extend her hand. When he didn't move, she leaned down, grabbed his, and yanked. "Let's go back to my room."

Bucky allowed her to pull him to his feet. "But you won."

"And?" Avoiding his eyes, Natasha patted nonexistent dust from her suit.

Her casual demeanor was a return to the norm and helped chase away his anxiousness better than anything else. The vision wasn't gone completely, though… just tucked away in the back of his mind with all the other things he halfway remembered but would rather not. Still, it wasn't at the forefront anymore, which made it easier for a smirk to ease across his face.

"I thought we weren't going to sleep together for a week if you won."

Natasha's attention shot to him, telling, but she recovered quickly, shoulders rising and falling in a nonchalant shrug as she sauntered towards him. "Well, you look like you could use some cheering up so…" Her body molded to his suggestively, and he felt the scrape of her nails in the hair at his nape. "To hell with the bet."

Leaning down, he chuckled into the crook of her neck. "I knew you wouldn't go through with it."

"I guess you just know me too well, Barnes."

Bucky captured her lips in a kiss and relished the satisfied exhale she issued as her arms wound around his neck. But the combination of their sounds – her whimper when he pressed her to the wall; his groan when her fingers worked skillfully at the front of his pants – wasn't enough to drown out the voice that whispered in the back of his mind.

"_I guess you just know me too well, comrade."_


	3. Chapter Three

A/N: I know that Nick Fury went with the ruse that he's dead at the end of CA:TWS, but let's imagine that he's come back from his "retirement" to manage a smaller, more discreet version of S.H.I.E.L.D. for this story. It may not be what's going to happen in the future of the movie-verse, but humor me.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything having to do with Marvel Comics or any of its creations. I can only appreciate the characters they've given us to work with.

* * *

**On Each Other's Team**

_and now it's in you, secrecy  
ancient and vicious, luscious as dark velvet  
it blooms in you, a poppy made of ink_

* * *

"The weapons are being mobilized out of Moscow, but that's not their point of origin. Attacking that site will ruin one of their primary distribution points, but it will also alert Pashkov that we're onto him. We need to focus on the source."

"It's too risky."

"It would leave too many loose ends."

"Those loose ends can be taken care of." A click sounded as an aerial picture filled the screen at the far end of the table. "Most of the activity can be traced back to this warehouse in northern Russia. It's isolated, so it'll be harder to get to, but if we manage to take it down, Hydra will have to look elsewhere for a weapons dealer." The image zoomed until the gaunt face of Andrei Pashkov consumed the screen. "It would be a serious blow to Hydra."

Aside from a few shuffling papers, silence filled the room. Seconds dragged into minutes before one of the men broke the quiet.

"You mentioned this mission would call for agents with long-distance specialties. If that's the case, why is Agent Romanoff here? Wouldn't Barton and Barnes be better suited for this line of work?"

Natasha blinked, having only been half-listening to the back and forth discussion of the op, but didn't look away from the two men standing outside the glass. Still in uniforms spattered with mud and debris, they waited in the foyer until they could meet with Fury for a debriefing of their latest mission.

She glanced away just long enough to look at each of the three individuals on the screens opposite Pashkov. "I'm perfectly capable of handling a long-range rifle, councilors."

"That may be so, but you're talents are more suited to undercover work and close-range combat."

The man that spoke was the same one that had questioned her abilities. A part of her wanted to sneer at him, tell him about the time she'd made a fifteen hundred yard shot through the wind and rain of a thunderstorm to hit a man directly in the eye.

Instead, her words were a mumble as she turned back to the two soldiers outside the conference room. "My talents are more encompassing than just that."

"Director Fury…" This time it was the woman on the far right speaking. "Unless Agent Romanoff was taught by the best, we'll stick with our decision. It'll be Barton and Barnes, or no mission at all."

At that exact moment, a pair of ice-grey eyes met Natasha's over the rim of the star-spangled shield affixed to Rogers' back. His chin lifted until she could see the smirk curling the corners of his mouth. When he winked, she had to purse her lips to fight the smile that pulled at them, the only visible response to his flirting.

If only the councilors knew.

She _was_ taught by the best.

Even now she could feel it… his steady hands over hers as he directed her aim, his firm torso pressed against her side, his warm exhale on her cheek, and all while the cold burn of ice seeped through her jacket front as they stretched out on the ground and observed the target pass through the scope.

Without warning, a face appeared between them. It blurred into focus, and once it had, she found herself staring at the inquisitive expression of Clint Barton. He cast a furtive glance over his shoulder to Barnes and then fixed her with a pointed look to which she raised a single challenging eyebrow.

Natasha knew that look, knew what it would mean. And after the meeting was adjourned, she was proven correct when he cornered her outside the conference room, grabbing her upper arm and swinging her around until her back was pressed into a corner.

"He's the one, isn't he?"

Her eyes drifted over the archer's shoulder to Barnes who was openly watching them now before returning to Clint's. "You sound like a teenage girl. Are you going to ask me if the two of us are getting married next?"

"You know what I mean, Nat." He frowned, gaze flicking back and forth between her eyes. "He's not just the Winter Soldier. He's _the_ soldier… _your_ soldier… the one you always talked about."

Head canting to the side, she fixed him with a cool expression. "And what makes you think that?"

"The way you look at him, the way you can't seem to take your eyes off him whenever he's around, the way you stay all night with him. Take your pick." Gauging her reaction and finding no outright contradiction, he breathed a laugh. "You watch him like he's going to disappear at any moment.

Few people would be able to successfully call her out on something like that, but Clint knew her too well, which made denying it pointless. Even still, she attempted to reroute the conversation.

"I watch a lot of people. That's part of my job. Yours too, if I remember correctly."

"True, but I can count on one hand the number of times you stayed the whole night with me." The weight of Barnes' stare was heavy, so heavy that Natasha wondered if she was the only one to feel it.

"Clint…"

"Just hear me out." The iron grip on her arm lessened as both of his hands settled on her shoulders. "I don't mean anything bad by it, and I'm not here to judge. You're more than capable of taking care of yourself. But the way you've been acting… it's not like you. We understand each other – always have – so don't give me some bullshit about you not caring for him. Don't tell me that he's just a fling."

She lifted her chin, unwavering. "Several men have been more than just a fling over the years."

"Altered memories don't count, Nat." The knowing lilt to his smile set her teeth on edge. "If you'd been in your right mind, you never would've looked twice at Alexei Shostkov."

"_You_ weren't just a fling."

The two of them had come together in the years following her integration into S.H.I.E.L.D. It might not have started out as the healthiest of relationships – something borne in the wake of pain and anger, fear and shared shadowed pasts wasn't meant to last – but they'd found comfort in each other's arms nevertheless.

By the end of it all, they'd helped each other, healed each other. And when the time came for them to go their separate ways, it was on terms that allowed them to maintain what had become a lifelong friendship.

"Maybe not, but I wasn't this guy either." Clint jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. "It _is_ him, isn't it?"

Despite knowing it was futile, for one long moment Natasha considered lying. Then, her attention shifted to Barnes. Apparently, his interest in their discussion had waned as he was now fully invested in a conversation with Rogers, and while she observed him, she allowed a wistful smile to ease across her face.

"I must be losing my touch."

"I wouldn't say that." Clint leaned into her line of sight, recapturing her focus. "If it makes you feel better, it's only obvious to me; everyone else thinks you two are just screwing around. Stark says it's a Russian thing."

They'd made the decision early on to keep what they had going on as under wraps as possible, so rumors and idle gossip didn't bother either of them. The more people that believed them to be just fucking, the fewer people there were to get closer to the truth of it all.

"Son of a bitch…" Clint's hands fell from her shoulders, and he blew out a heavy breath as he moved to lean against the wall beside her. "Who would've thought, right?" Crossing his arms, he eyed the preoccupied Barnes. "That he would break free from Hydra, end up here, and you two would pick up right where you left off?"

Natasha tilted her head, considering his words. "It's not… exactly the same."

"But you two have got the same connection as before whether he remembers you or not." From the corner of her eye, she saw Clint turn to her. "So why don't you tell him the truth?"

"Because…" The word trailed off into nothing.

"That's not a reason, Nat."

Across the foyer, Barnes and Rogers laughed about something, the sound of it echoing off the marble walls. Rogers leaned forward to place rest his hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath, but it was Barnes that she couldn't tear her eyes from. Head thrown back, the arm not holding the rifle wrapped around his waist… the sight pulled at her, made the hollow spaces in her heart ache.

"Because in the entire time we knew each other back then, not once did he ever smile like that." Natasha sighed, more wry than anything else. "He's happy, Clint… or at least, getting there. I don't want to ruin that."

"If he's anything other than an idiot, he'll be glad to remember you."

"Me and thirty years' worth of training and murder." When her view of the two soldiers was blocked by the dark form that was Fury, she met Clint's steady gaze. "If his memories return, it won't just be me he'll get back."

Unwilling to hear what he obviously thought was just an excuse, the archer shook his head. "He already knows most of the things he's done. I doubt he'd be shocked by a few more years of the same shit."

"But I was the one who turned him in." She took a deep breath and exhaled the emotion that threatened to make her voice shaky. "When his programming fell through and he asked me to run away, I was the one who panicked. I reported him and that was it, the last time we saw each other until he was shooting a scientist through me."

Time did nothing to dull the memory. She could still remember the fear in his eyes – bright, stark, and unnatural – as the officers had dragged him into the room, the silent accusation in them when her own gaze had lowered from his and shifted to Ivan's.

In a single moment of confusion and fear, Barnes had unwittingly revealed everything they'd managed to keep hidden over the course of almost three decades. Their affair had been discovered, and they'd both been punished for it, just in separate ways.

Hers was to remember.

His was to forget.

And she doubted she'd ever be able to fully erase the sound of his yelling as the memories were electrocuted away or the sight of frost creeping across the glass to obscure his face.

"How do you move past something like that? How could he forgive me for making that choice?"

"Things were different back then, Nat." Fury, Rogers, and Barnes began to make their way to a side office. "But you're here for him now." In the split second before the door closed, Barnes caught her eye and winked once more. "He'll understand, because as much as I don't want to admit it, he's just like us… he knows what it's like to be unmade."


End file.
